D1RE's guide to running RBG's [Archive]

Staff note: This guide is outdated but kept up for Archival purposes due to the positive feedback it received when it was relevant.

"The Warrior Adept ensures victory first, then does battle." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

Running a successful RBG group takes more or less the same as running a succesful pug raid. It needs a leader people will listen to, it takes organisation and it takes somewhat decent players. There is no luck involved in this, it's all a matter of preparation and proper execution of tactics.

LeadershipA strong leader is needed. Some people are natural leaders, people will gather around them and follow their every command without question. I'm not one of them. People will listen to me because of my experience and knowledge, but I do not command immediate obedience, I'm not capable of that. So in order for me to create a group that will work, I need to have a lieutenant or two. Since I always run with a balanced setup (more on that later) I always have a melee I can trust that will call kill targets for me. I will also appoint one of the defensive healers to coordinate cc in the defense and sometimes I will even let someone else do the tactical judgements. If you have more experienced players in your group, use them for what they're worth. Don't cling to your rank as a leader stubbornly, the goal is to win and if someone can do your job better than you without undermining you as the leader, let them.

A good leader is never angry and he always takes the blame if he makes a mistake. If you start blaming your players you will find yourself losing them quickly. Always stay calm and collected, admit to your mistakes and if there are players performing poorly or not doing their job, take it up with them after the battle and in whispers. Always make your expectations clear for your players before you start queueing for battles and make sure you replace players who can't do their job, but always be fair about it. If a 2.4k player refuses to listen it's just as devastating as a 1500 player who refuses to listen, both are a liability to the group and must be removed.

OrganisationGathering and controling a group of PvP players is hard. The problem with good PvP players is that their ego is proportinally way bigger than their PvE cousins (case in point: me) and they are not used to working on groups. To win RBG's you don't need skilled players, you need an organised group. It must work together as one organism, being able to swiftly adapt to changes. This is why you need to name your eyes and ears (lieutenants) so they can help you make the best possible judgements on the spot and it's why you need to give everyone a clear role so they know what they are supposed to do when an order is given. Remove the sense of individuality, make everyone into one group and they are easy to control.

Gathering the playersCreating the group itself is by far the most tedious task. I rarely pick up people from trade now because I have built a decent number of connections in proper PvP guilds so just by gathering a few I can get many. My groups are known to have a 3-1 win ratio and high rated players will join even if I have low rated players because they can expect to win most if not all matches. Before I had this luxury I would first gather a core I know. I have a tank I know that plays a lot, a few people from my guild, etc. Once you have 3-5 people you trust you can see what kind of group you can make and build around that.

For a typical pug I suggest a balanced setup with 4 healers. It's the most alround and safest way to play and it offers good utility without requiring too tight communication. A typical group for me consist of1 tank (I always have a warrior because I can afford to be picky, DK's work too)4 healers (1 dpriest, 1 rshammy, 1 hpala. The last can be either another rshammy or pala, I rarely take a rdruid)2-3 casters (me and a mage, always. Sometimes I take another caster, anything goes in this case. Boomkin, spriest, ele shammy or another mage are good choices. While your first mages is always frost, the 2nd can be any specc)2-3 melee (always a rogue for smoke. I also like to run with a feral because this means they can pull ninja manouvers together. A rogue alone isn't able to most of the time, but with a feral they can even 2 man flag carriers with healers once the debuff stack is high enough. For the 3rd spot a frost dk or a warrior is nice. I'm not fond of ret pallies, but they work too. Hunters count as melee, not casters.

This is a standard 4 healer balanced setup. This can easily be converted to a 3 healer setup by replacing 1 healer with any dps, doesn't matter if it's a caster or a melee. The other two viable setups are melee and wizard cleaves respectively. While meleecleaves were dominating last season, I expect to see mostly balanced and wizard setups in the top this season. Meleecleaves are large scale TSG, you pick a target and train it until it dies. This means they are heavily momentum based and work really well against poor organisation, in other words a puggers heaven. The issue is that they're not very good at adapting to changes, their only strategy is to zerg things and they quickly fall apart against well communicated CC. A meleecleave will always run with 2 or 3 healers and a maximum of 1 caster, a mage. Wizardcleaves are the opposite and this is why I expect to see them in the top of the ladder. They are like MLS, when properly played they will just shut down your entire team completely and kill you. The reason I do not want to run them in pugs is simply because they require extremely good coordination of the CC, the kind that comes from a single group playing together for a long time. It's not as simple as just increasing the CC communication either, the difficulty is multiplied, not simply added up. This also means a lot more CC calls on vent which in turn means more of your focus is spent listening to who is controlling what, a nightmare for a pug. With solid groups I expect it to be a success though and I would not be surprised to see casters dominating the ladder this season. Wizardcleaves always run with 3 or 4 healers and a maximum of 1 melee, a rogue.

TacticsThere are standard tactics for each battleground, but a good tactician turns his group into water, fluid and without form. That way there is no visible way to defend against your attack and you can flow through any cracks in the opponents defense. For now though, I'll teach you the cookie cutters.

Capture The Flag maps: This one is quite simple. You will send 1 or 2 healers with your tank (depends on if you run 3 or 4 healer setup) to get the enemy flag, the rest of your group will go to wipe out the enemy team and their flag carrier. Getting their tank is the top priority, always. Sheep to dismount him, slow him and even if you can't kill him, stay on his ass at all times. CC and kill his healers, separate him from his group and take him out. If you fail at this (which is quite likely given that they might have numerical superiority), gather with your own FC on his way back, escort him and stay with him. Let the enemy team attack you, you will have numerical superiority and terrain advantage, wipe them out and then counterattack. Your enemy will now be disorganised and your retaliation should quickly deal with the enemy flag carrier and score you the first capture. In the case of your strength being pretty much equal to the enemy you might want to stay defensive all the time and only send out your stealthers once the debuff stacks to 6+. This only works if you have at least two stealthers (feral and rogue) and your stealthers are superior to those of the enemy. This tactic is also superior if you have more healers than the enemy, as it is safer for you if they attack your fc than it is for the enemy if you attack his FC. Your key resources in CTF maps are the stealthers. Rogues in particular is something you must be picky about, a good rogue can turn the tide of a battle with a single smoke bomb, a bad rogue can cost you a kill on the EFC.

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Arathi Basin: With only 10 players available a 3 cap tactic is the only viable option assuming equally skilled opposition. Taking your home base and leaving your tank there, then splitting into two groups to take BS and either LM or GM. I prefer LM myself, gives overview and makes it easy to keep tabs on your enemy. If the enemy has an elemental shaman or boomkin, GM is the better choice. They will surely take LM anyways and it will not be worth devoting the resources to take it. BS is the most important base though and the majority of your group should go here. If you choose to take GM, send only a few people there and once it is captured, keep 1 dps and 1 healer there, the rest should be at BS. If you take LM split your forces evenly, but make sure the mage goes to LM for slowfall. This way you can quickly reinforce BS if needed. After you have secured 3 bases keep a patrol between your bases and send a rogue or feral to scout to see if you can pressure their home base. If you can ninjacap it with 1 or 2 players it will force them on the defensive and surely give you the victory, but do not ever send more people than that. Defense is the way to go here. If you have an elemental shaman or boomkin and the other team does not, only a few players at LM is needed. Send the ele/chicken, a healer and the mage. The fact that you got the knockback and the enemy doesn't will in itself be a massive deterrent. In this case it will be worth it to send a rogue to at least scout and possibly cap GM. If he succeeds reinforce him with a healer and possibly one more dps, have the mage slowfall from LM to BS to help there and hold your home base, GM and LM while BS will be undecided because you have enough people there to prevent a cap, but not enough to cap yourself. Anything the enemy does will be a loss for him. LM is close to impossible to cap due to the knockback, sending an attack to GM will cost them BS and zerging BS still leaves you with 3 bases and the possiblity of assaulting their home base if they go all out on BS. It also means that for every second of the 3-1 base ticking you get further ahead in points and due to the nature of the situation it's hard to gather your forces for one decesive attack and the confusion about how to deal with it further helps you. This situation not only gives you a superior position, a superior number of bases, it also gives you a massive psychological advantage. Very few players are good at dealing with stress and even if their leader doesn't, the chance of people on his team panicking and further causing confusion is pretty good. I'd say it's close to impossible to lose if you manage to get this advantage because even if it's possible to beat on paper the situation always seems desperate because everything is against you and this often causes players to attempt desperate tactics which are easily countered and might even cause them to dig their own grave even deeper.

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Battle of Gilneas: I'll be honest, I hate this map. It's a terribly designed BG because it heavily favours defensive play and the game is often decided by the which team can get 2 bases first. It's a very stale map with few options for smart tactical play or surprise attacks. Send your tank to your home base, the rest to WW. Try to have your mage intercept them with freezes, slows and ring, blow everything and try to take the base. After that you keep a patrol between the 2 bases, reinforcing wherever needed. If you are losing the battle at WW, have your mage, rogue and feral disengage and go for a ninjacap on the opponents homebase. Same rules apply here if you get it, keep patrols between the bases, stay mobile and defend until victory.

However, I have lately been trying a different approach. This assumes a setup similar to my standard (it involves having a feral). You will have your feral defend your home base, send everyone except for the mage and rogue to WW and then have them stealth/invis over to the enemy home base. If they do it properly and aren't discovered in time you will either get their home base or they will fall back to defend it and you will gain WW. They will be unable to cap WW because you got a prot warrior there spamming AOE attacks so even if you can't get it yourself you are in the superior position because you're pressuring them on two fronts. The reason for using a feral to defend your home base is because he's a stealther and this means it's hard to ninjacap it because you can't get a cc on him quickly and it gives him time to call for reinforcements before engaging in combat, which in turn gives you more time to respond before he is forced to reveal himself and risk a cc chain or death. Ferals are also pesky because they can't be sheeped and got good survival against melee with bear form.If you got the proper setup I consider this a superior strategy.

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Eye of the Storm: I heavily favour a 3 cap strategy here. It directly counters the 2 base + flag strategy (which is agonizingly boring) and allows for a swift and decisive win. 2 players to your outer home base (the one that borders the base you will not attempt to take), these two should be a dps and a healer. Lock + rhsammy or hpala is a good choice here. Let your tank take your inner home base (the one that borders the base you will take) and send your remaining 7 players to take the opposing base you designated. Upon taking 3 bases it is merely a matter of keeping a mobile group of players on patrol, ready to reinforce where needed. It is not uncommon for the enemy to go all out on a single base which lets you send a stealth to their last base to take out their single defender and grant you a 4 cap and a sure victory. Even if the stealther fails to take the base it puts them on the defensive and makes them think twice about zerging anything.

Do keep in mind while these are the best cookie cutter tactics I have been able to come up with after playing and watching a lot of matches, they do not guarantee victory and you should never rigidly stick to them if they do not work. They are the best way to start a match, but one should always make changes depending on the situation and how the enemy plays. It's easy to beat someone who refuses to adapt.

RBG's as a WarlockAs a Warlock you will usually run as affliction. The reason for this is that your role is to CC. Fear and UA are your primary tools, though your spread damage is really good and not to underestimated. I consistently place in the top 3 in damage done in RBG's and it's not uncommon for me to top it. You will keep your dots, haunt and pet on the kill target, use your spell lock on healers when going for kills, focus on spreading UA and fear liberally. Fear is your highest priority spell, it should always be on someone. Throw it on DPS when it got DR on healers, protect it with UA, spread your dots and only when all that is done you can start draining the kill target itself. Make sure to coordinate your fears with your other cc (mage sheeps, shaman hex, druid cyclone etc.), putting a healer in a 30+ sec cc chain is immensely satisfying and incredibly devastating to the enemy team. You must also make sure the rogue gives you a few seconds heads up before he's going to smoke bomb, that lets you get into position to howl in the smoke. You cause the pressure that lets your team land the kill. It's essential, but it's easy to overlook. Most people simply don't know how much the Warlock contributes to the kill, even without damaging the target much. You divide the healers attention, cause confusion in their ranks, force emergency heals and overhealing, you destroy them as a group. If there was ever a time you could truly cause chaos and disorder, it is in RBG's.

That being said, Demo and Destro aren't nearly as weak as in arena. Dispels are less rampant and your burst can be made more viable. Keeping that in mind though, I would never bring a Warlock that isn't Affliction. I might bring a really good player who plays Demo or Destro, but I would never bring him for the specc. The one place I would consider dropping an Affliction lock in favour of a Demo lock is Battle of Gilneas, because the first fight is so incredibly important and the burst AOE the Demo lock can put out is incredibly strong. Even then, Affliction is still very much viable and in no way overshadowed, Demo just has a shot at competing. This also only viable if your group is melee heavy and you are not going for a stealth cap on their home base, if you have a lot of casters it's more about control and subdue rather than burst and Affliction will be the preferred choice for its control and dispel protection.

There are a few very important things Warlocks need to remember when playing RBG's. First of all, your infernal. It should be used. It should be use early, to allow two or even three uses during a match. The second is Demon Armor. It should be keybound and the moment you have melee on you it should be used. When melee opens on you it's a sign of an incomming switch.The third is portal placement and usage. This is incredibly important as it can easily save you, snagging a kill from the enemy and that alone can turn a battle. The first few kills are ever so important in RBG's. The fourth is Devour Magic. Use it to dispel things like freedom, heroism and predators swiftness. Get yourself a set of unit frames that show dispelable buffs on the enemy with a different frame from the ones you can't dispel. The fifth is pets. You have four (five as demo) pets at your disposal, switch accordingly. Granted, the voidwalker is pretty much a glorified trashcan and the imps dispel is not that good when you have access to such a large amount of potential dispelers, you still have two (three) pets with solid abilities. A soul burned succubus can disrupt the enemy's positioning and in some cases (think balcony in WSG/TP or LM in Arath Basin) change a fight. Knocking the tank down from his healers (or the other way around) can, combined with a smoke bomb, pretty much guarantee a kill. Axe Toss and then soulburning a felpuppy can also really mess up a healer. These are obvious situations, keep an eye out for the less obvious ones. The reason I'm listing these is because they are easy to forget in the heat of the moment. Turn them into habits.